ResX translation

ResX translation

I was wondering what the experiences of other developers are concerning resX translation and tools.

We have looked at Passolo (pro-edition) but found it too complex and expensive (1940+400e). The resX functionality needs to be bought as an .Net addon.

We also looked at Susilizer (1200e), again this package too much but has a nice and workable user interface. We used Susilizer for a couple of translations now but are still looking for a better package.

A simple and free tool is resXeditor (0e) from peopleWordes which can be found on the internet on several locations. This tool works but is too simple for extensive usage.

One thing that should also be taken in consideration is: who is doing the translation? Not every "translator" is handy with software. Especially when you don't use professional translators but target users for your translations, you should take this into account. My experience is that most users can handle XLS files.

Susilizer has a freeware version that is meant to give to your translator. This will help in the communication between developer and translator. The general translation tools are the same and there is no need to convert the files between the applications. But: your user must be able to deal with it. Although I found it a simple application, my users silently disagreed with me; sending me XLS files instead. So if the translation application can handle XLS to resX transformation you've solved this part.
Susilizer can handle XLS import but I experienced problems with it (double lines).

In general the packages I have seen sofar are over-complete; 90% of the offered functionality is not needed.
The things that are needed for resX translation are simply in basic but extra functionality like search, auto translate and duplicate check/translate are very handy features to have.

Since resX files are just XML files, one could make possibly an OS webapplication. Even nicer would be if this was integrated in ServiceStudio! <hint>

So, are there more usable translation packages out there? Are there other ways to translate ResX files?

I have quite some experience now with translating, though only with Passolo. The good sides from Passolo are that is supports all functionality needed, it has a client application that is free, and I find the user interface of the client software very straight forward. A user without a technical background can easily use the client, maybe not with all possible features, but it is obvious enough that he can use those features that are important.

The downside is that the process of preparing the resources and creating the "Passolo project" is complex, though we have a clear description on how to use it in one of the forums, see topic "Multi Language translations with Passolo". In case of extensive multi language development, we even have an application that simplifies this process, which might be helpful for you too (in the future). It is true that Passolo has much more functionality than needed, especially when working with resx files only.

Another time consuming effort is that the prepared Passolo file that has to be translated, contains a lot of items that don't have to be translated (must not be translated), which is not obvious for a non-technical user. Such a file would have to be "pre-processed" by a technical person. But this is probably a problem that other tools have as well.

I agree that the ideal solution would be to have an OS application, or even nicer, to have it integrated within Service Studio. This has already been investigated once, but has some drawbacks on performance. But who knows, something for the future!

For the benefit of others who may come across this (2.5 years after the last post), I'm the author of a professional localization product for .NET developers and their translators. This product greatly simplifes the process of translating resx files both parties. For the programmer, it integrates right into Visual Studio itself (as requested above). It's worth a look at http://www.hexadigm.com

With the same reason in mind as the poster above, I can recommend the localization management tool POEditor to transalte resx files online.

It has all sorts of automation features, such as Translation Memory, API, machine translation, and has a collaborative translation interface where you can bring your own team of translators, or order translations, or crowdsource them.

Also, it supports other files than .resx (like .strings, .properties, .po etc) which you can load to the same project to translate identical strings just once. You'll be able to export the files back to the original format.